Top Posts

We are very happy and proud to announce that Wordwide FX has entered into a partnership with FX portal ForexLive to translate their content into Spanish for our blog Insight by WFX. ForexLive is one of the most respected FX blogs in the FX cosmos. It features top-tier authors such as editor-in-chief Adam Button, who recently won the FXStreet’s “Forex Person of the Year 2014″ award, former FXDD chief analyst Greg Michalowski, and Ryan Littlestone, a well-known analyst with over 20 years of experience in the market.

Wordwide FX will publish ForexLive’s technical and fundamental analyses by Greg, Adam, and Ryan on a daily basis. The material will also be published on the Spanish site of the reputed portal investing.com.

he ruble weakened for a second day and the cost of insuring Russian debt against default increased after Fitch Ratings lowered the country’s credit score to one step above junk and crude oil slid below $50 a barrel.

The currency of the world’s biggest energy exporter dropped 1.9 percent to 62.7350 versus the dollar by 1:25 p.m. in Moscow. The yield on Russia’s five-year ruble bonds rose 84 basis points to 16.26 percent, the highest since Dec. 17. Five-year credit default swaps increased 6.5 basis points to 585, making it the world’s fifth-riskiest credit, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Russia’s investment-grade status is under threat after plummeting oil prices and the conflict over Ukraine triggered the worst currency crisis since the country’s 1998 default. Brent crude slid 2.6 percent to $48.81 a barrel after plunging 11 percent last week.

“Oil remains the key factor pressuring the Russian financial markets,” Slava Smolyaninov, the chief strategist at UralSib Financial Corp. in Moscow, said by e-mail. “The Fitch downgrade brings Russia closer to the verge of the non-investment grade status, clearly. The bond market has already priced in Russia far below the current ratings.”

Tumbling oil prices and sanctions over Ukraine have made the ruble the worst-performing currency worldwide since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March. The nation’s economic outlook has “deteriorated significantly” and forced a “steep rise” in interest rates, Fitch said in its decision on Jan. 9.

Russia’s inflation rate will average 13.7 percent this year after accelerating to 11.4 percent in December, Morgan Stanley analysts led by Diana Pasquale said in an e-mailed note. That will prevent the central bank from lowering the key rate from 17 percent, the emergency level it introduced last month to stem the ruble collapse, according to the note.

In the last few weeks, Wordwide FX has completed a very challenging project: the Chinese voice-over for the five-step stocks trading course for worldwide famous Lex Van Dam trading academy. The process demanded careful integration of two voices, a male voice and a female one, which added difficulties to the production. But thanks to our audio engineering experts, we have achieved top-quality results. Wordwide FX also updated the video material accompanying the course, also with excellent results.

Wordwide FX started cooperating with Lex Van Dam Financial Education in February 2014, and we are very happy to say that we have achieved a wonderful rapport for all the parts involved. Working with Lex and his team is a real pleasure to us. We are really looking forward to our next project together.

The People’s Bank of China is increasingly resisting traders’ weakening of the Chinese yuan, by announcing higher rate in its daily central reference rate. But as Chinese data continue to weaken across the board, FX traders have no choice but to bet against the yuan (pushing up the USD/CNY rate).

The chart highlights the divergence between the PBOC’s falling reference rate, known as CNY fixing price as set by the China Foreign Exchange Trading System (red) and the spot rate in the interbank market, the fluctuations of which should not exceed +/- 2% of the average price.

Aside from signs of China’s slowdown shown in retail sales and consumer credit, last night’s release of Nov PPI contracting by 2.7% — below zero for the 13th consecutive months — and the 1.4% CPI being the lowest in five years underscores the threat that China’s hard landing story is at its most credible status since misplaced warnings have begun in 2009.

The adjacent chart highlights China’s deteriorating capital account balance, which tumbled to a negative $601 million in Q2 as a result of surging capital outflows. We patiently await the release of capital account breakdown for Q3.

This is going to one of my shortest, but probably most important trading column ever. In all my years on Wall Street I have never, ever used this word before, but today I will. I can guarantee you a way to avoid every stupid, impulsive, account wrecking trade you have ever made from this point on.

Before I tell you how let me be clear. I am not saying I can stop you from losing money. I am just saying I can stop you from losing money in the stupid let-me-just-try-this-trade-because-I-am-bored-and-now-I-am-wrong-and-now-I-am-going-to-add-to-my-position-until-I-get-margined-out way that all retail traders lose their money.

How many times have you had great weeks, months, quarters only to squander it all away on an idiotic idea that made you fight the market in size too large until they carried you on stretcher? I’ve done that at least a dozen times in my career. And guess what? There is no way to prevent it.

But there is a way to control it.

Professionals on Wall Street always use a process when it comes to trading, which means that your entries, exits, sizing and any adjustments are all pre-planned and well established before you click the screen and place a trade. But as traders we are always going to be tempted by risk. Sometimes those ideas will pan out sometimes they won’t, but the unifying factor of all those trades is that they stand outside of your process and are therefore vulnerable to the possibility of ruin.

So here is my solution to controlling the non-process trade. One unit. The minimum trade. Yes for most of you on retail platforms that means .01 of a standard lot and 10 cents per pip. Here is the key point.